Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen scripsit:

> Erm, it doesn't cost everyone a few years.  I was tested at age 22months
> with a third grade reading level.
Well, there are probably lots of prodigies here, but that's not the point.
It takes, demonstrably, extra time to learn to read English compared to more
sensibly spelled alphabetic languages, just about a year more.

> I, BTW, don't mind the way we do things in English.  Once you get used to a
> system and are comfortable with it, it doesn't matter all that much, in
> terms of what kind of eccentricities it has, because you're used to them and
> are comfortable with them.
To be sure.  But that is no reason not to try to reduce the net social cost.

> Modifying the way we spell things isn't any
> more of a solution to illiteracy than switching which side of the road
> everyone drives on, is a solution to problems of speeding and people
> violating traffic rules.
Left- or right-driving is truly arbitrary (pace Napoleon and lots of
knights with swords), but maggelity can't possibly be equal to intelligently
chosen etabnannimity.

> You have to memorize one system or another and
> deal with its peculiarities no matter what, which means the burden of proof
> that the new way is better, is *way* on the side that wants the change.
Granted.  That's why Wijk wrote a book.

> Not
> to mention that the difficulties in implementing such a change are
> incredible, especially with a population the size of the entire English
> speaking world (esp. if you count all the ESL types who already know a first
> language).
Since the orthography remains readable to those who know the older system and
(with qualifications) vice versa, the individual costs would be tolerable.
Institutional costs (fixing dictionaries and e-dictionaries, e.g.) would be
greater, but what's that set against a year of each child's life?

> Just getting all the computers to accept new spelling rules
> would be a nightmare -- remember Y2K?  All that involved was finding all the
> instances of one very specific sort of data field and changing its
> parameters slightly.
"Finding all the instances" was the hard part.  Spelling checkers, unlike
date routines, are not all over the place.

> I don't want to think about rewriting UNIX, and
> neither does anyone else.
Not an issue, just a new library for ispell.

--
John Cowan                                <jcowan@...>
http://www.reutershealth.com              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Yakka foob mog.  Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork.  Chumble spuzz.
    -- Calvin, giving Newton's First Law "in his own words"

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